Site Navigation

Featured Content

February is the month to submit your stories, poetry and visual art to our Undergrad Literary Magazine - The Oval. Submissions are due February 22. Submit at umoval.wordpress.comFICTION - Two pieces limited to 5,000 words each, double-spaced, Word doc.NON-FICTION - Two pieces limited to 5,000...

Orla McCague, Irish Studies Fulbright student, begins our Springtime Irish concert series on February 8 & 9.Orla McCague is a fiddle and piano player from County Monaghan, Ireland. Growing up in a community surrounded by traditional Irish music, Orla started playing fiddle at the age of 8 and...

Writer Gina Ochsner will visit the University of Montana to present a fiction craft lecture titled “Mistakes I Have Made and Great Advice I Wish I Had Taken to Heart” at noon on Friday, Feb. 9, in the Dell Brown Room of Turner Hall. She will give a reading the same day in the same location at 7...

Programs

English is one of the largest and most dynamic departments at the University of Montana. Undergraduates choose from emphases that include literature, film studies, creative writing, English education, and linguistics, while also having an opportunity to minor in Irish Studies or literature. The English Department also houses the Montana Writing Project, which collaborates with educators and students at all levels across the state, as well as the Composition program, serving close to twenty percent of the student body each year. Graduate degrees are offered in Creative Writing (our nationally ranked MFA program), Literature (MA), and English Education (MAT).

A common dedication to excellence in reading, writing, and critical thinking holds the many threads of our department together. Our students, regardless of the options they choose, receive a strong foundation in studying both in canonical and noncanonical literatures–taking classes that expose them to texts as varied as Paradise Lost, Bleak House, Love Medicine, Brokeback Mountain, and Midnight´s Children. Through close reading, students learn to analyze a plethora of diverse forms of representation, developing skills that facilitate criticism, creative writing, and pedagogy. These skills also prepare students for the larger challenges that face them in a world where reading, writing, and thinking are integral to almost every profession.